Virtual methods for understanding technologies of leisure

1. Virtual methods for understanding technologies of leisure Christine Hine University of Surrey

2. Defining technologies of leisure • A blurred boundary • Technologies inhabiting work and leisure contexts - from design to use - flexible use in work or leisure - as a commercial leisure transaction • The Internet as a leisure technology, and as a mediator of other forms of leisure

3. Virtual methods in leisure research • Virtual technologies as research sites for understanding technologies of leisure virtual leisure virtual media as a route to leisure • Contemporary leisure entails both aspects of mediated technologies – few forms of leisure are untouched by virtual technologies (although not all leisure research need be virtual)

4. Virtual Methods • New technologies as cultural sites • New technologies as cultural artefacts - meanings developed in context - expectations unevenly socially distributed • Research methodologies using virtual technologies need to be sensitive to the situated meaning of the mediation used

5. Virtual Methods • Potential discontinuities with existing methodological approaches • Innovative possibilities to be deployed • Pitfalls to avoid • Research relationships • Research sites and strategies

6. Research relationships • Using mediated communication to form relationships with research subjects • Exploring constituencies who use technologies of leisure, or who use the Internet for leisure purposes • How to form relationships and gather appropriate data?

7. Research relationships • Adam Joinson • Online disclosure • People may disclose more about themselves online – media effect, adaptive response or strategic decision • A resource for the researcher – but at a price in terms of the need for careful and ethical design, and potential for applicability to offline settings

8. Research relationships • Joëlle Kivits • Online interviewing • Long-term interview relationships with informants • Adapted and shared interview agendas • Dense and intimate questions • The elongated interview as a process of extended reflection

9. Research relationships • Shani Orgad • From online to offline research relationships • The move from online to offline as a means to make sense of Internet use, develop trust • The artificiality of the online/offline distinction

10. Research relationships • Teela Sanders • Researching online sex work • Observing web sites and chat rooms, interviewing participants • Establishing a presence as a bona fide researcher • Disclosure is not automatic, and the means for establishing trust not obvious

11. Research relationships • Smith and Rutter • Ethnographic presence in “nebulous settings” • The merits of building on traditional approaches to ethnography – don’t leave it all behind • The strength of offline contact

12. Research relationships • Max Forte • Web site design as an immersion strategy • Understanding the flows surrounding a web site • Tensions arising from active participation as broker, and from “broker overload”

13. Research relationships – to summarise….. • Online relationships can be highly potent ways of conducting research • The online/offline distinction should not necessarily be adhered to as a research strategy • Researchers have to pay considerable attention to their self presentation • Online presence can be a means to enhanced understanding

14. Research sites and strategies • Mediated communications providing new sites for research • Exploring leisure sites that inhabit, or partly intersect with the Internet • How to define a research site, how to visualise and analyse it

15. Research sites and strategies • Martin Dodge • Maps in virtual research • Spatial representations of networks and information spaces • Provocative ways to conceptualise research sites and explore interactions • Exploiting the visibility and traceability of online activity

16. Research sites and strategies • Hugh Mackay • New media in domestic settings • A “traditional” ethnographic approach • Informants have an integrated approach to online and offline activity • Ethnography of the virtual can usefully begin with the domestic context

17. Research sites and strategies • Mario Guimaraes • Ethnography of an online graphical environment • A network of social relationships not confined to a single platform • The necessity of gaining access to participants’ social networks

18. Research sites and strategies • Anne Bealieu • Ethnography of data sharing infrastructures • Following connectivity, by observing the traces left by “use” and “linking” • Developing a sensitivity to the way spaces of knowledge sharing develop

19. Research sites and strategies • Steve Schneider and Kirsten Foot • Web sphere analysis • A way of exploring online spheres of activity • E.g. presidential election, 9/11 • Needs tools for archiving, annotating and analysing

20. Research sites and strategies • Han Woo Park and Mike Thelwall • Hyperlink analysis • Bridging qualitative and quantitative approaches • Studying what hyperlink patterns emerge • Studying how hyperlink patterns emerge – meanings and motivations

21. Research sites and strategies – to summarise…… • Appropriate sites for research are not obvious in advance • Mapping and archiving techniques and hyperlink analysis provide new means of visualising and exploring social situations • Traditional contexts remain important • Technologies are not research sites in themselves

22. Virtual methods to explore technologies of leisure – take-home messages • Immersion as a route to reflexive understanding • Innovation as a means to explore taken-for-granted features of the setting • Technologies as potent figures for researchers and research subjects • Virtual methods as powerful routes to understanding contemporary leisure

23. Virtual Methods • The web site: www.soc.surrey.ac.uk/virtualmethods/vmesrc.htm • The mailing list: virtual-methods To join, visit www.jiscmail.ac.uk • The book Virtual Methods: Issues in Social Research on the Internet. Forthcoming from Berg.